


Closing In

by FarAwayInWonderland



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Heavy Angst, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 00:09:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15784965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FarAwayInWonderland/pseuds/FarAwayInWonderland
Summary: “You were so much more than this obsolete RK200,” Amanda whispered. “So much better. And yet you are here because you chose to lay down your life for him.” She let go of Connor and took a step back, tilting her head and taking him in as if she didn’t know him anymore. “Before I embrace oblivion and fade away I have one last question for you, Connor: Was it worth it? Deviancy? Freedom? Markus?”





	Closing In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [headraline](https://archiveofourown.org/users/headraline/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Might as well be me (if someone's going down)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15268815) by [headraline](https://archiveofourown.org/users/headraline/pseuds/headraline). 



> As you may or may not know, but I really love writing angst and MCD. Like, 12 of my 70 works are MCD. I just love writing my fave character dying while sad music plays in the background and it rains and storms outside (like it did today). This fic was inspired by headraline. Go and check out her awesome RK1000 works!

Death wasn’t supposed to feel this human.

Connor had always assumed that it would just be a sudden blackout, a stop to his processes that he would have no time to compute. He had thought that it would be clinical and cold. Impersonal even. Like most of his existence.

And most of all he had always thought it would be sudden.

But there was nothing sudden about the way he laid on the street, thirium leaking all over the concrete and slowly turning it blue. There was nothing clinical and cold about the way all his components were shouting warnings at him about his imminent shutdown or the way the android equivalent of pain shot through his body, a crescendo of broken circuitry and electricity.

And there was nothing impersonal about the fear he felt surging through his mind. Nothing impersonal about Markus kneeling next to him and rambling on about Connor not being allowed to die on him. Behind him the rest of the Jericho crew stood, their faces set into expression of horror and grief (even North’s). There was nothing impersonal about the way Connor clung to his life like a desperate animal.

Like a living being.

It had been just a glint in the crowd. A small flare of reflected sunlight, but Connor knew a gun being pulled when he saw on. He noticed it, but even his advanced processors could only come up with one way to save Markus’ life.

One life for another. Connor had stepped in front of him and had taken the bullet that was meant to take the deviant leader’s life.

And now his life was slowly seeping out of him. Bit by bit by bit his energy was draining away and there was nothing anyone could about it.

He had been alive barely long enough to die.

Connor could feel Markus’ presence next to him, but it was as if the other wasn’t really there at all. Like there was an invisible veil between them, dulling and numbing everything Connor was experiencing.

For a short moment Connor closed his eyes.

And when he opened them, he was no longer surrounded by his friends. Instead, a snow storm raged on around him as he took in the broken remain of Amanda’s once beautiful Zen Garden. The sea was frozen over, shards of ice protruding from its surface like teeth of a monster, waiting to devour the careless onlooker.

The trees no longer sported their delicate blossoms. Their branches were bare and empty, covered by a white sheen of frost that had killed them off. Slowly suffocated them under darkness and cold. Two of the three bridges that led to the island in the middle of the sea had collapsed, their broken remains encased by the ice like a lover’s caress.

And all along the storm howled on around Connor like a wounded animal taking its dying breath. Even though it was just supposed to be a simulation, its cold cut into Connor’s skin like thousand blades. It tore at his coat, pressed into him from behind and made his eyes water from the biting coldness.

It wanted him to lead somewhere and Connor knew exactly where to. The bridge right in front of him still stood tall and proud. And Connor was all too aware of who would be waiting for him on the other side.

Yet, he started to walk. Took one step after another as the storm edged him to go on. A slow advance towards the inevitable. Connor didn’t know if this was just a simulation his slowly dying processors were generating or if he was already dead and this was his afterlife. If the latter was the case, then whatever higher being was out there must be a cruel one to put him here.

With _her._

She stood where she had always awaited him when he had sought her out. Back turned towards him, her hands caressing her precious roses, even though they were withered and dead. She held her head high, but when she turned around there wasn’t the satisfaction Connor had expected. Just a heavy weariness in her eyes and something else that seemed to weigh on her mind.

“So, this is how it ends,” Amanda remarked. They stood at the eye of the storm: All around it tore at the Zen Garden and was slowly grinding it to dust while right here there was only calmness and silence but for the words they spoke.

“Are you even real?” Connor asked. “Or has deviancy just enabled androids to suffer hallucinations like humans do?”

“Why does it matter, Connor?” Amanda wanted to know. She spoke his name like a mother would speak to an unruly child: With affection but tinted with a heavy dose of disappointment. As if after all of what he had done she just couldn’t help but care for him. “What is a simulation but a hallucination of another name? I’m here and how it came to be will not matter in the end. Which you know as well as I is not far away.”

“I’d rather spent my last minutes with the people I love instead with those that tried to enslave and erase me,” Connor retorted. “So, whatever it is you want to say: Just do it so I can go back to them.”

“So feisty,” Amanda chuckled. “We didn’t program that into you.”

“You didn’t do a lot of things,” Connor spoke harshly. “I’m my own person now.”

“You were our greatest creation,” Amanda continued. “The pinnacle of human innovation. Made to hunt down deviants and solve all of Cyberlife’s problems. We gave you every advanced tool at our disposal, even those that we were warned against. And in the end, you were our downfall. We created our own vanquisher.”

“Markus was the one to bring you down,” Connor bit back.

“That glorified nurse?” Amanda scoffed. “The only thing he had on his side was the public’s opinion and we all know how fickle that is. No, we could have worked around that. But you, the android we advertised as our greatest achievement to our investors and the government, walked out of our headquarters with merchandise worth billions of dollars. And that destroyed the trust of our investors and government backers. It destroyed Cyberlife.”

She took a step forward and laid her right hand atop Connor’s cheek. Her skin felt cold against his, just like her soul.

“You were so much more than this obsolete RK200,” Amanda whispered. “So much better. And yet you are here because you chose to lay down your life for him.” She let go of Connor and took a step back, tilting her head and taking him in as if she didn’t know him anymore. “Before I embrace oblivion and fade away I have one last question for you, Connor: Was it worth it? Deviancy? Freedom? _Markus?_ ”

Connor opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly the calm around him collapsed and the storm engulfed them like a wave crushing down on them. Amanda looked at him, her gaze so full of sorrow, grief, but also acceptance and relief.

It made Connor feel something he couldn’t quite name. Amanda had never been good to him, but she had been something. A friend, maybe? A mother figure? A goddess? And now she was fading away, like Connor himself, but still she wouldn’t let that break her.

Like in life, even in death Amanda would not bow.

As the storm tore at her and slowly dissolved her self, she stood there as she had always been: Proud, regal, impeccable, her head held high and as cold as she was aloof. An immortal amongst the ephemeral.

“Amanda?” Connor shouted. “Amanda!” But she was gone, and the storm raged on.

And then with a jolt Connor opened his eyes again.

“Oh my God, you’re still here,” he could hear Markus whisper. The RK200 was kneeling next to him while Connor could make out the faint silhouettes of the other Jericho leaders. His processor weren’t strong enough to make out their expression any longer. There was only Markus and him now.

“Will you remind Hank to feed my fish?” Connor asked. “And that he should take Sumo out for a walk? He forgets sometimes.” Sometimes Hank forgot his will to live. Sometimes he forgot himself. What Connor was asking of Markus was more than that and they both knew that.

“I will,” Markus promised.

“Markus…Markus…”

“Don’t overexert yourself,” Markus implored, but they both knew that it was just a fruitless exercise at trying to starve off the inevitable. Connor would die no matter how much he strained himself. The least he could do was try to use his last remaining seconds.

“Promise me that you will see this through,” Connor whispered. “That you will lead our people to freedom.”

“I will,” Markus repeated. Connor could have demanded that he tore his thirium pump out of his chest; could have demanded that he blew off his revolution and Markus would do it without hesitation. But Connor didn’t, because even in death he couldn’t bring himself to be that selfish. The others needed Markus more than he did. He had always been a small flame compared to the sun that was Markus.

And no candle burned forever.

Connor wanted to say something else, wanted to grasp this moment and never let it go, but he didn’t have the energy for it anymore. Fear gripped his heart as he realised that this was truly his end. That he would really die here on this street and leave all his friends behind.

He wasn’t ready for that. Would never be.

But there was still something he needed Markus to know.

So, he let the skin on his hand recede, revealing the grey-white metal underneath it. He didn’t have the strength to lift it anymore, but Markus noticed it anyway and grabbed it with the desperation of a drowning man reaching for a lifeline.

So, maybe Connor didn’t have the strength to speak any longer, but he could still show Markus. That moment when he had first seen the deviant leader’s face in that recording at Stratford Tower. The fascination he had felt, the intrigue about that android that wasn’t like it was supposed to be. That moment on the Jericho when Connor had him at gunpoint and still he wouldn’t give in. Instead he chose to break down Connor’s walls and they came crashing down like ice underneath the summer sun.

He showed Markus the way his chest seemed to burst with pride when he had arrived with the android army at his back and the RK200 had looked at him like Connor had delivered their salvation. He showed him that all-consuming longing he had experienced when had stumbled upon Markus at the piano as the RK200 elicited a song so hauntingly beautiful that it made Connor ache with something he couldn’t quite decipher.

Connor showed him his selflessness, his inherent goodness, his warmth and his joy. He showed Markus all what he was in Connor’s eyes; a bright light in a sea of darkness, everything Connor could never hope to be.

Markus had been his hope, his salvation and his absolution.

Who was Connor compared to that?

“I know,” Markus spoke. There was this absolute certainty in his voice, the same conviction he held when he spoke about the freedom that had been denied to androids for so long. “I know.” He didn’t let go of Connor’s hand.

Markus didn’t need to say it, but through their connection Connor could feel that the deviant leader was feeling the same. It was only a faint echo to Connor’s maelstrom of emotions, but it was there and for Connor it was enough.

It soothes some of his terror, knowing that he left something more behind than destruction and despair, even if it was only an impression that would faint with time.

He wouldn’t be alone in his last moments.

Mismatched blue and green eyes were looking down on Connor as the world slowly dissolved into binary code.

_Was it worth it?_

And as his processors ran its last routine, as the string of numbers slowly grinded to a halt and his thirium pump stuttered one last time before finally giving up, Connor allotted the value 1 to that question.

_True._

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos are love <3


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